Lionel’s going to start producing in the States again! Well, a little.

Lionel is starting up production in the United States again. It’s a limited basis–just a plastic-bodied box car–but it’s something. Interestingly, to me, the plastic bodies are going to be produced in Warminster, Pennsylvania. My dad grew up in the same county, a couple of towns north of Warminster, roughly 12 miles away.

The tooling is being produced in China–not a tragedy, seeing as the original Lionel Corporation frequently outsourced its tooling production and even a lot of its design to Italy–and individual parts will be made here. The trucks and wheels will be die-cast here, the frame will be stamped and formed here, and the body injection molded here. Then the parts will be assembled here. Originally, they planned to make all the parts in China and ship them here for assembly, so this represents a change of plans.